The Breaker's Concubine (14 page)

Grenba’s teeth and onto her cream gown. He backed away from the maid hovering in the

doorway of the groomers. On the other side, his groomer leaned against the frame, clearly

blocking his entry.

The groom nodded toward the serving woman and said in a low voice, “Show him,

Salina.”

Flushing, she fiddled with the laces at the front of her dress and began to unlace her top. “I

don’t think it’s necessary—”

The lean man slowly shook his head. “He won’t understand what will happen to the

Mistress until you show him.” The groom placed his hands on Devnar’s shoulders and turned

him to face the maid. Not meeting his eyes, she finished unlacing her dress and pulled it down

over her shoulders. Where her breasts should have been were scarred lumps of tissue, twisted

into misshapen mounds. Devnar tried to step back, but the man held him.

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The groom’s voice sounded from over his shoulder. “Salina used to belong to Lady

Grenba. She put herself between the lady and a man she was torturing. Salina was fond of him,

and the lady, drunk and careless, was about to kill him. To pay for interrupting her pleasure,

Lady Grenba had Salina’s breasts burned off.”

“My husband, Danilel, loved my breasts. He said they were the one place on earth he felt

safe,” Salina said softly. “And Lady Grenba was always jealous of them. Always looking for an

excuse to cane me in front of her troops, to tie them in complex knotted ropes until they turned

purple with lack of circulation. She had her men do things, horrible things to me while she

watched. I—” Her voice cut off in a thick choke.

A nauseous heat broke out over his body as he watched her lace her dress back in place. He

slumped against the wall and wiped the oily sweat from his forehead. The faces of Melania and

his sister flashed before him, each being put through the torture Salina had described. “No more,

woman. I’ll think about what you said.”

He looked up, then reached toward her, hesitating when she pulled away. Patiently he

waited with his hand held out. Just a little trust was needed. He let the tension flow out of his

body and assumed the stance he often had to use with his sister when nightmares came over her.

Using the hard-won patience he had learned, he stood as still as he could. To Salina, he was a

man, and men meant pain. The switch came over Salina’s eyes, and she placed her wrist in his

hand.

“Thank you for the honor of showing me your battle scars.”

The old woman tugged at her hand and blushed. “They aren’t—”

“Yes, they are. You went to war for the most noble of intentions, keeping your friend alive.

All other goals fall into ashes before it. In a war of purity versus evil, the darkness will always

fall, and justice will always find a way.” He knelt before her and kissed her hand. “You honor

me, lady, with your tale.”

Unshed tears gleamed in her eyes as she took a deep breath. “Maybe you aren’t quite the

barbarian we were led to believe.” She looked at the groom, and he nodded. “Lady Grenba’s

servants made sure we knew you broke a trainer’s arm. You have to understand why we feared

for our Mistress around you.”

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“They gave me
trunage
.” Devnar ignored their gasps at the mention of the powerful

aphrodisiac. “I wouldn’t whore for them, so they gave me enough of it that I lost my mind. I

guess my body chemistry reacts differently. Instead of putting me into a mating rut, it put me

into a battle frenzy.”

Salina opened her mouth, but the groom cut her off. “Let it be.” She nodded and gave

Devnar one more searching look before turning away and hurrying down the hall.

With a sharp tug on his arm, the groom led him into the white stone baths. The humid air

held the mellow scent of herbs mixed with soap, and Devnar took a deep breath to cleanse his

lungs. Neither man spoke as Devnar allowed the groom to gently push him into a deep pool,

flinching only when the rough bristles of a brush scrubbed at his back.

“Stand,” the groom said in a rough voice.

“How do you know so much about me?” He raised his bound hands above his head as the

groom efficiently scrubbed his chest and stomach.

Rubbing the brush against a bar of sage soap, the groom shrugged and gestured for Devnar

to raise his leg. “People talk; other people listen.”

Devnar thought of how the maids at home would chatter away like excited birds whenever

they got together. “If overpopulation is such an issue, why don’t your people leave this planet

and go live elsewhere?”

The groom gave him a hard look and rinsed the brush in the water while Devnar sank back

in up to his shoulders. “The survival of our people was bought with the blood and sweat of

generations. I will not dishonor my ancestors by throwing it all away for my own selfish needs.

Besides, there is no law or safety outside of the domes. Only poisonous air, killing radiation, and

barren land.”

Devnar leaned forward as the man gathered his hair and began to wash it. “From what I

saw from the ship that brought me here, your polar ice caps are reforming. There should be a

decent amount of land available in a couple hundred years after all that ice pulls back the lakes

and oceans. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are new tracts of usable land even now.”

“Lies,” the groom replied in a rough voice. “The empress would have told us if there was

any new land.”

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Sensing he had pushed the groom as far as he could on that subject, he switched tactics.

“What about going to another planet? Surely you’re aware that there are thousands of worlds

where you and your family could live out your days in freedom. My planet, Jensia, is always

looking for honorable men.”

The groom snorted. “You can’t fool me, off-worlder. I know all about what waits for us on

other planets. War, famine, plague, and raiders like yourself that steal our women. There isn’t

another planet out there that could rival the purity or security of Kyrimia. Besides, once you

leave, you can never, ever come back.”

The man poured a bucket of cold water over his head to rinse, and Devnar wiped the water

from his eyes. He had hoped the man would express interest in getting off the planet, and then he

could have used him as an ally to escape with Melania. “What about having a family of your

own? Don’t you want that?”

The groom unfolded a large towel, then gestured for him to step from the bath. “As long as

I continue to serve with loyalty and devotion to my Mistress and the empress, there is always a

chance my wife and I will be blessed. And if the Mistress were to have a child, that baby would

be as much ours to love as hers.”

Devnar grabbed the towel and finished drying himself. He heard the note of hesitation in

the groom’s voice and decided to try to dig deeper. “Really? I can’t imagine if I had a wife, she

would feel the same way. A child of her own to cuddle and hold or the child of someone whose

house she cleans.”

“Get on the table,” the man said in a gruff voice.

Devnar reclined on his stomach and tried to keep his tone light as the man massaged

sandalwood-scented oil into his back. He willed his body to relax, but his entire focus was on the

man working his shoulders. “On my planet, a man’s greatest pride and joy is his children. We

value them and our mate above all else. But I guess your fear of the unknown is greater than your

desire to make your wife a mother.”

“And your uncontrolled rutting is the reason you have to rob from others to feed your

brood. Your arrogance is appalling. Tell me this, who is loved more? The child squeezed out and

forgotten among his horde of siblings, or the child waited for, prayed for, and wanted with all

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Ann Mayburn

your heart.” The man pushed away from the table and stalked toward the exit before Devnar

could respond. Well, there went the idea of getting the groom to help him.

Devnar swung his feet over the side of the table and sat up as the door closed behind the

groom with a pneumatic
hiss
. He tried to focus his mind on escaping, to look for an exit or

something in here he could use for a weapon. Unfortunately his thoughts couldn’t get past

Melania’s rejection and the reason for it. He couldn’t really blame her for the way she had

reacted. She’d been raised pretty much since birth to believe the system that had been her mother

and father was all powerful and all knowing. Add to that the only love and praise she’d received

probably came from doing exactly what she was told, and you had a woman who would not only

be terrified of breaking the rules but conditioned to believe she wasn’t worth loving.

He had to find a way to prove to her she couldn’t live without him and that his feelings for

her weren’t just a ploy. That he could offer her things no one else in the entire universe could. If

he could complete the bonding with an exchange of blood, she would be bonded to him as well.

Once that emotional and spiritual link was established, there would be no way for her to hide her

heart from him or protect herself from his love.

Shame rushed through him at the thought of bonding a woman against her will. It went

against everything he had been taught. A bonding should only happen after both parties had

agreed and spent a considerable amount of time in proper courtship. If the woman was already

bonded to another male, then he would have had to court her mate just as thoroughly as he

courted her. If they both accepted him, an unbreakable chain would form between their souls

forever.

Not something even the most foolhardy male jumped into, but here he was, doing just that.

He would have worried he’d lost his mind if not for the unshakable conviction that Melania was

meant for him. It could not have been more obvious she was his destiny than if his Goddess had

appeared and told him herself. He knew with every drop of blood in his body, with every breath

he took, that Melania was his mate. To him it was as apparent as the sun in the sky and the

ground beneath his feet. There could be no other now that he’d found her. A peace came over his

soul as he realized that maybe this was the reason he had been brought here. His Goddess took

an active role in the lives of her people, and it was not unheard of for her to subtly guide her

worshippers to where they would be needed most.

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And Melania needed him almost as much as he needed her.

A full bonding was the only solution, and he had to do it quickly. The more she cared for

him, the harder she pushed him away. It was the only way to get past the walls she and her

society had built around her heart.

Oh, he understood why she had those defenses. She loved to please, and it would have

been impossible for her not to fall in love with every novice and concubine that came her way

without enormous self-discipline. A warm glow of satisfaction filled him as he remembered the

way she gave up control, how she gave him the gift of her little body tightening around him with

her orgasm. That victory thrilled him as deeply as any triumph on the battlefield.

Maybe he had to look at this like a military campaign. Obviously his efforts to try to

understand her on her terms had failed. If he put her actions and thoughts into the context of an

enemy to be defeated, he could use all the stealth and skills he had learned in his lifetime of

holding his land against the southern rebels. Her defenses were strong but not impossible to

breach.

He pushed off the table and paced the small room. He would need to get her alone,

someplace where she felt secure. Right now she was probably as off balance as she ever would

be and was busy trying to rebuild her emotional defenses. He needed to launch his next attack

before she had time to fortify her excuses and convince herself she didn’t want him.

The door slid open, and Salina appeared with an armful of clothing. Putting a contrite

expression on his face, he turned on the charm that never failed to get him what he wanted. He

looked at the older woman through his lowered lashes and said in a soft voice, “Salina, I need to

apologize to the Mistress. You’re right. I feel horrible about causing her pain. I need to make

amends, please,” he added with a seductive rumble to his voice and hid his smile as Salina

flushed and patted her gray hair.

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Chapter Eight

Cekina, a pretty new maid with Melania’s household, stood at the arched doorway to her

bathroom and watched Melania. Lush and full figured, the dark-haired maid never lacked male